SOMEBODY had to be held responsible for a recent power breakdown in the National Assembly when it was in session with the prime minister present. That somebody was the general manager of Wapda’s National Transmission and Dispatch Company, who was reported to have been suspended after the incident.

But whose head will roll for the untold power failures (officially termed as ‘trippings’) that have occurred in major cities and districts throughout the country recently? Such frequent and prolonged power breakdowns in so many parts of the country is nothing short of a national crisis.

Countless ‘major’ and even more ‘minor’ trippings (the terminology of an official of the Lahore Electric Supply Company who referred to power failures lasting more than 20 minutes as ‘major’ and those lasting less than 20 minutes as ‘minor’) have been reported in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, as well as in Wah, Taxila, Gujar Khan, Bahawalpur, Sialkot, Sahiwal, Narowal, Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Thatta, Makli,

Attock, Mansehra, Karak, and the tribal areas.

But the ‘major trippings’ in many places last for hours on end, if not days. Electricity supply in Jamrud Industrial Estate in Peshawar was out for at least five days at a stretch. Bandhi Town in Sindh was reported to be without electricity for at least two whole days.

Power was also reported to be out for two whole days in parts of Lahore (Bedian, Nadarabad and Arifabad). Twin towns of Thatta and Makli in Sindh and the surrounding villages had remained without power for 23 hours at a stretch. It was common for power outages in many other places, including some sectors of Islamabad, to last for over three hours.

The unrest caused by the power outages have led to protest strikes by citizens and even law and order situation in some places. This was not surprising because many people’s livelihoods were being seriously affected by the unusually high frequency of power failures this summer. Worse of all is the disastrous effect which such frequent power disruptions have on the industrial sector and the economy as a whole.

It is difficult to believe, but Wapda officials insisted that there was no shortage of power in the country and that there was no loadshedding. An official claimed in Dawn that the current power generation — about 11,462mw — is in keeping with the demand. The explanation is that an outdated and aging power supply transmission system, in dire need of a massive overhaul, is unable to meet the load of consumer demand, and thus is causing the frequent ‘trippings’ or power breakdowns.

Indeed, a photograph of a transformer on fire in Islamabad appeared in Dawn on June 28. The day before, a local news agency reported that five electricity transformers in Rawalpindi had been burnt due to excessive load. When officials are asked why this old transmission system has not been overhauled or replaced so far, the usual reply is ‘lack of resources’.

At the same time, officials also blamed consumers for the power failures. An Iesco official told an English daily last week that consumers do not declare their actual usage while getting power connections and thus their using more than the sanctioned load cause transformers to heat up and trip.

The Lesco chief also told Dawn the same thing: consumers who fall under the single phase category are now using airconditioners, which consume 60 times more power than tubelights, thus rigging the load calculations of the electricity supply company (escos).

On the other hand, even if the load calculations of all the ‘escos’ had been accurate, would the outdated transmission system have been able to sustain the increased load? Besides, does the current power generation of 11,464mw, which Wapda officials say is in keeping with the demand, include calculations of increased airconditioner use by consumers?

The Wapda chairman warned last week that if big dams like Kalabagh or Basha were not built, the power situation in the country would become more critical after 10 years, given the growing energy needs of the current economic development. From the point of view of the ordinary suffering consumer, the power situation today is already very critical, what to talk of 10 years’ time.

Whether the outdated transmission system or insufficient power generation is the cause of the power failures, it doesn’t make any difference to the consumer. He expects his government, as all governments are supposed to do, to plan ahead according to intelligently perceived demands and execute the development plans well before the system bursts.

Similarly, the consumer also expects the same kind of planning from the government for his water supply, telephone and internet systems, which also have been experiencing serious breakdowns in the country recently.

Diesel-run generators or battery-run uninterrupted power systems (UPS) which can power a couple of bulbs, tubelights and fans, provided some relief to consumers during the recent power failures. But it is difficult to imagine how a country can run a decent economy depending for weeks on such stopgap measures for constant power supply.

A Wapda member claimed Thursday last in a television programme that Rs128 billion would be spent in the next five years on the development of transmission, distribution and grid station system to ensure uninterrupted power supply to the consumers.

Does this mean that consumers will not see the end of power failures until several years later at least? Provided some big dams are also built in the meanwhile? Finally, is Rs128 billion spread over five years really enough for overhauling the nation’s power distribution and transmission system? Or is it just another band-aid for the system?

When assessing load demand (short, medium and long-term) in development plans for power supply and transmission system, the government and Wapda will need to take much more into consideration than the increase in usage of airconditioner and other electronic appliances. A lot more power will also be needed to sustain the projected economic development in the country.

Failure of the government to invest heavily and modernize the country’s power supply system, as well as other utility services, will deprive Pakistan even further of much needed foreign investment. Who wants to invest in a country without reliable, uninterrupted and affordable power?

LONDON: They are called the G8 because they are purportedly the eight most powerful men in the world. The aura of vast importance that surrounds the Gleneagles summit is magnified by the thousands who have marched and danced this weekend, and the billions more who have watched on their TVs. It’s not any old summit that can prompt the reunification of Pink Floyd, a band riven with almost as many personal animosities, artistic differences and bad history as the G8 leaders.

And yet these powerful egos feel weak. There will not be just one lame duck at Gleneagles, there will be a gaggle of the limping fowl. Gerhard Schröder, floundering at below 30 points in the polls, is highly unlikely to be leader of Germany after September. Jacques Chirac has another two years in the Elysée, but his stature has been shredded by his humiliating referendum defeat. Paul Martin, the Prime Minister of Canada, heads a minority government which has been battered by financial scandal. Silvio Berlusconi’s grip in Italy is flaky. Vladimir Putin so dominates Russia that he wants to change the constitution to give himself a third term in the Kremlin. But his country is the smallest economy of the G8. As for George W Bush, his authority is waning and his approval rating is slumping much faster and earlier than is usual for second-term Presidents.

Lucky old Tony Blair then? This will surely strengthen his hand when the bargaining about aid, trade and climate change goes down to the wire? It’s true that comparison with most of his counterparts flatters a Prime Minister who has recently been given a refreshed lease of power. It is also to the credit of him and Gordon Brown that they have used the G8 as a bully pulpit to put Africa at the centre of national and world attention.

Aid organizations may be right to detect a lot of devil in the detail of George W Bush’s pre-summit promise to double American aid to Africa. They may be right again when they ask why it will take Europe another decade to reach aid targets first agreed more than 30 years ago. But it is doubtful that these pledges would have been extracted at all without the pressure created by this G8.

The difficulty for Tony Blair is that the weakness of so many of the other leaders is not going to make it easier to get their signatures on dotted lines at Gleneagles. Strong leaders tend to be more ready to take risks and bite on hard choices; lame leaders are less open to compromise and much more prone to lash out.

For all the months of negotiation during the build-up to this summit, a lot will be decided in the face- to-face encounters between the men who will arrive in Gleneagles on Wednesday. The outcome is going to turn on the personal chemistry between the leaders. Tony Blair’s belief in his own arts of persuasion is going to be put to one of its most searching tests.

The first crucial relationship will be the Prime Minister’s relationship with Jacques Chirac. And that is appalling. Gleneagles will throw the two men together again, up close and personal, when the insults they traded in the wake of the failed European summit are still stinging in each other’s ears.

The decisive moment between them may not occur in Scotland, but several thousand miles around the other side of the globe in Singapore. The antagonists of Downing Street and the Elysée will spend the early part of this week in the Far East for the formal presentation of the British and French bids to host the 2012 Olympics. At 12.46 (GMT) on Wednesday, the president of the International Olympic Committee is scheduled to announce the winner. The desire to see the British bid triumph is mixed in Number 10 with foreboding about how much harder Jacques Chirac will be to handle at Gleneagles if France doesn’t get the gold.

“If he wins in Singapore, it will be OK,” reckons one senior adviser to the Prime Minister. “If we win, God help us.”

There is also trepidation in Downing Street about Gerhard Schröder. On some readings, the Prime Minister’s relationship with the German Chancellor has become even more poisoned than his relationship with the French President. With Chirac, it’s business. With Schröder, it is personal, more like a family feud. Because the Prime Minister and German Chancellor were once quite close, it’s made the subsequent falling out that much worse.

This will probably not pollute getting agreement on aid and debt relief for Africa. It certainly should not; the impoverished millions of that continent do not deserve to be made victims also of the internal squabbling of rich Europe. Happily for this part of the summit’s business, the advance negotiations have already produced agreements on aid targets and the cancellation of debt ready to be ticked off at Gleneagles.

France has often proved to be Britain’s best ally in pressing other G8 countries to make more generous commitments. Diplomats engaged in the negotiations say that they believe they are knocking on the door of being able to announce that they have achieved the target of an extra $50 billion of assistance to the developing world, half of that to go to Africa.

Much more difficult will be securing meaningful progress on changing the terms of trade between the rich world and the poor. The best way to aid Africa, as Gordon Brown suggested in a powerful speech last week, is to empower the continent to help itself. Fair trade is the single most important thing the G8 leaders could do to assist Africa to grow its way out of poverty.

Tony Blair wants the final communique to say something hard about the elimination of the subsidies the rich world gives to its farmers to dump their surpluses on the poorer world and smother local producers. Putting a deadline on eliminating this injustice would be a real success. But it is not enough to have the right argument to get an agreement. Securing one was going to be difficult even before the outbreak of open Anglo-French warfare over the CAP.

The Prime Minister’s problem with Jacques Chirac is inverted when it comes to his relationship with George W Bush. In a memoir to be published this autumn, Sir Chris Meyer, Britain’s former ambassador in Washington, records how he was told to approach America by Jonathan Powell, chief of staff to the Prime Minister: “We want you to get up the arse of the White House and stay there.”

A vast number of people, including senior members of his own government, would love to see Tony Blair use this summit to kick the arse of the President, especially over global warming. Climate change will — already is — having its most catastrophic effect on Africa. Everything achieved on aid, debt and better governance will be undermined if the desertification of the continent condemns millions more Africans to famine.

Leaks of the pre-summit negotiations confirm that the Bush Administration continues to reject the science about global warming, never mind an urgent need to do anything about it. Before last night’s apparent softening of American resistance, the French and the Germans had been pushing for the United States to be punished with its isolation. The seven others could agree on a final communique about global warming which left America in the cold. This idea, ritually humiliating George Bush by formally declaring him to be in a minority of one, does not appeal to the Prime Minister. As one member of his cabinet puts it: ‘That’s not Tony’s style.’

No, it is usually not. But the power of shame is a negotiating tool he must not be afraid to use at Gleneagles. It may prove to be his weapon of last and best resort. The world is watching this G8 with unprecedented intensity. It will treat with rightful and severe contempt any leader who allows personal pique, old scores or wounded vanity to get in the way of bettering the lives of millions of the least powerful people on the planet.—Dawn/The Observer News Service